Grilled Bacon Wrapped Chicken Livers in a Cast Iron Skillet is a fantastic treat that will melt in your mouth. Add a touch of brown sugar to balance the flavors.
Wait! Don’t leave! Not yet! This will be the recipe that will shock you with its deliciousness! It will leave you questioning what is actually inside the bacon! I promise you, it doesn’t even taste like your Grandma’s fried livers.
🍴 Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- You only need three ingredients!
- They cook fast and need just 10 minutes of prep time.
- They are wrapped in bacon, so what’s better than that?
- This is a great recipe if you are reluctant to try chicken livers because it’s so good.
🧑🍳 Ingredients
Bacon – Use thinly sliced bacon from the store. You will cut each strip in half, so you will not need a full pack.
Chicken Livers – The cheapest place I have found to buy these have been at our local oriental stores. I have not had the best of luck in our corner grocery stores. Either they have it, but it is older, or they don’t have any at all. The oriental store always has it in stock. It’s fresh and is much less expensive.
PRO TIP: Know the difference when using Beef Liver vs Chicken Liver.
Brown Sugar – Two tablespoons is all you need. When you sprinkle it on at the end of the grill, it will leave just a hint of sweetness.
🔥 Grilling Instructions
Step One: Heat the grill to 450 degrees on direct heat. Give yourself time as this may take 30-45 minutes on a Kamado style grill. If you are grilling on a gas grill, you will be ready in just a few minutes.
Step Two: Cut the strips of bacon in half and wrap them around a chicken liver. Place it in a small cast iron skillet. Don’t worry about adding any oils, as the bacon fat will render quickly.
Step Three: Place the cast iron skillet on the grill and cook for 25 minutes. The dish will be bubbling with the fat from the bacon and it may be hard to tell when the liver is fully cooked. Cut one open to double check.
Step Four: For the last 2-3 minutes, sprinkle two tablespoons of brown sugar on top and continue to grill. This adds a surprising sweetness to the dish. Remove from grill and serve to your family and guests!
Make sure the bacon is done by checking for the clues we talk about in How To Tell When Bacon is Done.
💡 Expert Tips
Use thinly sliced bacon for this recipe. We pulled out some of Jason’s smoked bacon from the freezer. He sliced it on the thick side, and they just did not wrap around the livers well.
We ended up just frying that bacon the next morning for breakfast. Use the thinnest bacon you can find. I used hardwood smoked bacon, but maple bacon would complement the brown sugar too!
If you wrap bacon on just about anything and grill it, the taste is out of this world. That is just about what happened here. The bacon already has a hint of smoky flavor along with the fats that make everything extra juicy.
I had to find a creative way to use up tons of chicken livers that Jason bought and froze when I was out of town. Yes, that is a recurring theme in our house. When left unsupervised, he goes a wee bit crazy at the store with grandiose ideas of everything he needs to put on the grill. Hence, the two extra pounds of chicken livers I discovered in my freezer! 😀
The end result was mouthwatering, though. I devoured them and basically pushed him aside for these wrapped livers.
Recipe FAQs
Yes! Chicken liver is filled with folate, iron, vitamin A, vitamin B12, riboflavin, and more. Plus, when cooked right, it tastes amazing and is hard to beat.
Yep, it’s a good idea to rinse and pat dry before cooking. Just make sure to dry it well with a paper towel.
It’s up to you, but for this recipe, it’s not required to soak it. If you do soak it in milk, it helps remove some of the metallic taste that the liver tends to have. To soak it, simply place it in a dish with milk and keep it in the fridge for 1-4 hours. Dry it with a paper towel before you begin cooking with it.
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Grilled Bacon Wrapped Chicken Livers
Ingredients
- 12 Chicken Livers
- 6 slices Bacon cut in half
- 2 tbsp Brown Sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the grill to 450 degrees on direct heat
- Cut the bacon slices in half
- Wrap a half piece of bacon around each piece of chicken liver and place in the small cast iron skillet. We used the six inch skillet.
- Place cast iron skill on the grill and cook for 25 minutes.
- The final 2-3 minutes, sprinkle the brown sugar on top of each liver that is wrapped in bacon. Allow to cook and the sugar to melt into the livers. Serve immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
Jason’s been firing up the grill for over 30 years after graduating from the US Coast Guard Academy. His love of finely-grilled steak and chicken led him to buy his first Weber grill to put on his apartment patio in 1992. Each military move led to a new grill (a mixture of gas and charcoal) until he fell in love with the Big Green Egg in 2008. Since then, he has added another 4 grills to the collection. Yes, he has a problem. Jason loves smoking in the ceramic BGE with exotic woods including olive wood from Egypt and hard to find varieties such as sassafras and orange wood. Jason takes the term “foodie” to a whole new level, jumping at the chance to take food tours and cooking classes during foreign travels. These have provided inspiration to incorporate new ideas into recipes when he gets back home. He has been featured in Fox News, Parade, Yahoo News, Kansas City Living and more. After retiring from the military and moving to southwest Florida, he has focused grilling and smoking locally sourced meats and fish (read: he likes to catch his own fish!)
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